• E3 2010
• Games
• PSP

by InuJoshua on 06.24.10

The unlikely pairing between Disney and Square has been far more successful than anyone could have imagined. At this point, was anyone really surprised to see a new Kingdom Hearts game at E3 this year? At this point however, the franchise has had about double the amounts of spin-offs as it has had main titles. Birth by Sleep promises to be something better though, serving as a prequel to Sora’s story and explains how everything in this world got so eff’d up. Unlike most of the other spinoffs however, this PSP title brought the full Kingdom Hearts experience during my brief demo.

Birth by Sleep stars three different keyblade wielders, each with their own story that links to tell one overarching tale. My demo put me in control of Ventus, a character who looks almost identical to Roxas from previous entries in the series. Traveling through a space station while on the lookout for Experiment 626, (also known as Stitch,) enemies constantly bombarded me with a variety of attacks, By the way, don’t call them heartless, because although some of them share some physical traits, nearly every enemy I ran into was brand new. These “Unversed,” can be pretty fierce, but Ventus had plenty of tools to keep them at bay.

Similar to some of the previous games in the series, special abilities needed to be equipped and the amount that can be used are limited. Using the control pad to cycle through keyblade attacks, magic, items and special abilities was a bit of a pain due to the awkward positioning of the pad next to the analog nub, but wasn’t too much of a problem after some getting used to. The biggest difference I noticed in the combat was that abilities were limited to one use at a time before it had to recharge. No more, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” from our protagonists. I liked this in particular because it makes you plan your moves more carefully and ensures that every attack must count. After taking out enough Unversed, Ventus unleashed a new transformation ability that allowed him to tear through enemies for a brief amount of time. Just when I was getting the hang of being a keyblade master again, my time with the demo came to an end.

In the short amount of time I got to play Birth by Sleep, my excitement for the title grew tenfold. The PSP shows off its technical muscle and seemed to perfectly recreate the experience from its console based big brother. The game promises to be bigger, with many new Disney themed worlds, improvements to the combat and new character designs, making the formula feel fresh in the process. After my demo, many questions still remained. What is the relationship between these new characters and the previous cast? Will Gantu capture Stitch? And why do they fight with keys? At least most of these questions will be answered once this installment is released. Square and Disney found the key to a wildly successful franchise, and I can’t wait to unlock Birth by Sleep when it’s released this fall.

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